John Kameel Farah

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John Kameel Farah (* 1973 in Brampton , Ontario ) is a Canadian composer and pianist whose work contains elements from baroque and early music , from experimental and contemporary classical music, improvisation, music from the Middle East and electronic music.

biography

Farah is the son of immigrant Palestinian parents. Due to his enthusiasm for Bach, he began taking piano lessons at a young age and also showed an interest in composing. As a teenager, he began experimenting with fragments of classical music and Arabic music. He studied piano and composition at the University of Toronto, where he received the Glenn Gould Composition Award twice. During his studies he concentrated in particular on the work of early keyboard composers, as well as on composers of the 20th century and the avant-garde, whose styles he integrated into his own compositions and improvisations. In 1998 he performed Arnold Schönberg's solo piano works .

After completing his studies, he began private lessons with the composer Terry Riley in California. In Toronto he played a lot in the jazz improvisation scene, but continued to compose solo and chamber music. Due to his fascination for ambient, drum & bass, techno and EDM, he began to include electronic elements in his music.

Farah now specializes in live solo concerts, in which he surrounds his piano with synthesizers and electronically filters the piano music and uses effects.

He composed music for the Canadian choreographer Peggy Baker and for the astrophysicist John Dubinski for the Gravitas project. In 2009 he became a member of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble.

Farah is also a visual artist and has accompanied many of his concerts with live projections of his drawings.

Discography

  • Time Sketches, 2017 (New Masters / Noble Culture)
  • Between Carthage and Rome, 2015 (Bosworth Records)
  • Strands, 2015 (self-released)
  • Bluffers Lookout, 2014 (self-release with the Canadian Electronic Ensemble)
  • Pieces of the Earth, 2011 (self-released with pianist Attila Fias)
  • Unfolding, 2009 (Dross: tik Records)
  • Creation, 2006 (self-released)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ABOUT - John Kameel Farah. Retrieved June 13, 2017 (American English).


personal data
SURNAME Farah, John Kameel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian composer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Brampton , Ontario